Nebraska lures family of deer hunters

By Dennis Smith

Posted:
12/06/2012 02:38:02 PM MST

In the process of acquiring my grandson's big-game permit (mentioned in the last Home Waters column) we discovered that adults, too, may purchase similar, over-the counter, non-resident, double-deer, antlerless deer tags for the extremely reasonable sum of $55 each. "And you can buy as many as you want," the friendly voice said over the phone.

"Seriously ... as many we want? Good for two deer each? You're kidding, right?"

Indeed, the lady was not kidding. Nebraska has what amounts to an exploding whitetail deer herd that's not only raising industrial scale havoc on the state's corn, wheat and alfalfa crops, the aggressive whitetails are threatening to displace the state's mule deer herds through habitat encroachment and hybridization.

Nebraska Game & Fish officials want the whitetail population reduced; so do farmers and ranchers. Consequently, antlerless whitetail permit numbers were increased, prices reduced and the season extended. We could hunt any season -- archery, black powder or firearms from September to mid-January with the appropriately corresponding weapon -- our choice. For obvious reasons, the license is called an Antlerless Only, Season Choice permit. We jumped at the chance.

Venison is an all-time favorite in our households, but going afield each fall as a family is even more important. The annual family deer hunt has been a tradition in our clan that goes back as far as I can remember. Unfortunately, getting everyone in the family properly licensed has become a virtual impossibility since Colorado implemented a mandatory Limited Draw licensing policy several years ago. The new regulations brought an abrupt end to our annual big game expeditions.

While hunting out of state was not high on our list of alternatives, we were elated at the prospect of renewing our old tradition, and literally giggled about it. But then, shortly after we printed out our new permits, reality set in: There are five of us hunting this year, each allowed to take two deer and, according to Nebraska Game & Fish officials, the prospects of doing exactly that are better than average -- far better. You do the math.

Now we didn't kid ourselves, the idea that all of us would actually limit out in a week seemed very unlikely, remote in fact, but -- "What if?" we thought. What if Jupiter aligned with Mars, everything just fell into place, everyone got shots, no one missed, and we found ourselves with 10 deer on our hands?

It could happen. And because of that, no matter how remote the possibility, common sense dictates it would be wise to prepare for it.

Standard operating procedure is to field dress deer and drag them out of the woods whole, doing the requisite skinning, quartering and cooling work in camp and the final processing at home. This works just for a deer or two, or even three, but can become problematic very quickly as the count rises, particularly where keeping all that meat cool for the long trip home is concerned.

With that in mind, we'll have to invest in some big insulated camp coolers and maybe even haul along the old flatbed trailer to transport the bounty back to Colorado.

Fantasy and possibility aside, we don't really expect to tag 10 deer, nor do we even care to. The truth is we'll be happy no matter what the score is, so long as we can hunt together again. Now if we could just do it in our home state.

Dennis Smith is a Loveland outdoors writer and photographer, and his freelance work is published nationally. Smith's Home Waters column appears on the first and third Thursdays of the month. He can be reached at Dsmith7136@msn.com.